


Time Lost

by haganenobeato



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gift Fic, Some Fluff, or rather - expressed, some unsaid feelings, which are eventually said
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 09:11:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13143537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haganenobeato/pseuds/haganenobeato
Summary: Barely a year after the war, the burns of her back are healing physically and emotionally. A inspection threatens to unravel all of it when Riza returns to the Eastern countryside.





	Time Lost

**Author's Note:**

> A giftfic for meiosis2 over on tumblr! Merry christmas and Happy early birthday!

**Eastern Amestris, 1910**

As of late, Riza Hawkeye’s lips acted on their own accord without any say on her part. Surprising her in arbitrary moments throughout the day where she had been lost in thought.  Never in a way that could endanger herself or Lieutenant-Colonel Mustang, like blurting classified information, but it was equally as dangerous in her eyes.

Riza was catching herself smiling.

The danger sprung from rather intrusive thoughts. The danger was in the evenings, when the work day called for late nights and the fatigue would dismantle the professionalism and allow more than just camaraderie to slip into their conversations. The danger was jokes that brought out tears and hurt her sides from laughter. In those times, her mind would think more of meanings in his gestures, like hands brushing or silent, awkward rides home -  as if they were waiting to say something. It felt like they were toeing the line, approaching something far from innocuous, and she felt that in her chest, despite nothing ever  _actually_ happening. She was reminded of all this staring out the train window as the scenery of the late fall landscape passed them by in rapid succession.

Some days, it had been necessary to do an hourly reminder of where exactly Riza’s place was in the grand scheme of things. He was a walking reminder of what had happened in the desert - what she carried on her back and yet, there were things about him that made it easier to forget. 

“You’re awfully quiet today, Lieutenant.” Riza looked over to him. He was flipping through the documents he’d pulled from her bag.

 _Of course he forgot his,_ Riza thought, wiping away a smile just in time for him to look up.

“Something on your mind?”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve visited the countryside, sir. It’s a different place, but very reminiscent of a lonely, little town out there somewhere.”

He stared out the window before dark eyes landed on her. “It’s not too far. Perhaps a quick detour wouldn’t hurt?”

The tracks in her mind switched. That’s not something she wanted. Not yet. The thought of it chilled her. “That’s not necessary, sir.”

The Lieutenant-Colonel shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He handed her the files, effectively changing topics to her relief. “Will you run by me these details again so I make sure I have them accurately?”

Their fingers briefly touched beneath the folder, and she told herself to make nothing of it. “Absolutely,” she said without faltering, but swallowed thickly as she separated the sheets of paper. Riza briefed him on the main points of their mission: “An inspection, ordered by General Grumman of East City, is required to investigate the rumors of alchemists transmuting coal and other materials into gold and other precious metals and gems in violation of Official Code of Amestris Annotated Section 16-3-1.

“Local military and policemen have been unable to capture these alchemists due to their hasty departure or diversions, such as setting buildings on fire or creating massive low-visibility dust clouds. The smaller towns are suffering from coal shortage, especially with the approaching winter. We are to investigate, but are explicitly ordered not to engage unless sufficient backup is present.” A tiny smile emerged as he scoffed, but she continued. “There’s enough evidence in this file from testimonies and forensic portraits to believe we are looking for a “Felix Scuttle”, but could be going by a different alias.

He and his crew were last heard of in Giribaz working their way down from Fisk.” She presented the mugshot of man with a deep frown in his late 30s measuring tall at 6’1” with average features including wavy brown hair and with a brown eye and a cloudy eye in the other. “He should be easy to identify. Doesn’t exactly look like the townspeople in these parts.”

The Lieutenant-Colonel inspected the photo. “Looks like someone trying to bring about economic disaster.”

She snorted from his remark, “Consider him armed and dangerous, sir, as with the rest of his crew. ” Riza spread out the rest of the photos across her lap.  

“Heard loud and clear, Lieutenant.”

She secured the files backed into the safety of the folder. Riza pulled back the sleeve of her thick jacket for the time only to be met with a watchless wrist. She asked, “Do you have the time?” as the train attendant announced the proximity to Giribaz.

“Quarter after five,” he responded and tucked the silver watch back into his pocket. “Too late to start covering ground now.”

Her legs ached to stand and move around. “We should start early. There’s a car ready for us from one of the smaller military offices.”

“And a room from the local inn is secured as well?”

“Two, actually.”

“Oh, good.” He said it in a way to end the conversation and she urged herself to not read further into his silence as he looked out the window.

They arrived with a whine and a bout of smoke from the steel giant’s whistle. They had embarked on the midmorning train and now, the sun was beginning to sink under the horizon in rich gradients of red and vibrant oranges. Without question, it’s a town significantly smaller than East City by population density and size with smaller municipalities dispersed far and wide. Giribaz had been a wonder to a younger Riza whenever she left the true countryside for supplies not available back home. Like the other areas their perpetrators have hit, it doubled as a mining township with occupations centered around the success of the mines.

The inn was around the same size as the manor she grew up in. She wondered why she had made the comparison. Riza felt both solace and annoying disappointment when they ate dinner with little conversation. She succeeded in making no show of any it. As a female officer, Riza grew aware that it was far more prudent to be scant when it came to emotions - which is why her smiling problem was a concern. It happened before she realized it. They retired to their respective rooms and Riza stared at the ceiling that night. Her mind elsewhere, she searched for the watch that she had forgotten back in East City. 

* * *

 The wild goose chase began at the break of dawn.

Riza set out before the Lieutenant-Colonel woke up. A layer of dark blue dampened the wood buildings and dirt roads, hanging around and waiting for the sun to chase the shadows away. Enroute to the local military branch, she saw miners beelining to the mines with the handles of pickaxes over their shoulders. Vendors set up shop, and their children, she assumed, with yawns tugging at their mouths with sleep still heavy in their eyes. It was all too nostalgic for Riza.

By the time she returned to the inn with a vehicle, he was sitting at a table enjoying a cup of warm coffee with two eggs sunny-side up and a single slice of toast. His usual. “Good morning, sir. Lieutenant Hawkeye reporting for duty.”

He waved her down. “I don’t know how anyone can get up so early,” he rubbed his eyes, “I already have enough trouble getting up at 0700.”

“Merely a habit, sir.”

He ate quickly. “I trust you’ve already procured the vehicle.”

“Yes, sir.”

A smile and she shoved away the delight. “Good. Let’s get this over with.”

Except it was not as easy as getting it over with. From the moment they set out from the inn, they questioned and interrogated the people of Giribaz. Mine workers covered in earth, mothers with babes in their arms, and the elderly on their way to a game of shoji, the reply was the same: the alchemists in question were seen for no more than a few hours within town before stealing away a good amount of coal. In spite of this, the local authorities offered them a tip that Scuttle’s crew were heading to the town of Crawley, an hour or so northeast of Giribaz, but it was vague and with no real assurance there’d be anything there should they spend the hour drive and back.

“We’re don’t really have a choice, Lieutenant.” The Lieutenant-Colonel said as he settled the suitcase in the trunk of the car and chivalrously helped her with hers.

“I just think there’s more to be investigated here if our intel says this is where they were last seen.”

He moved in closer, close enough that she held her breath, but she convinced herself he did it for discretion. “Don’t you think it’s a little suspicious that everyone had the same story to tell? Besides…” His eyes flickered between the walking townsfolk. “There’s something missing here.” She stood there, processing it, while he shut the trunk with a good shove. “Time to go, Lieutenant.”

Upon arriving, Crawley consisted of a single strip of buildings that made up the “town.” A post office, a small inn, and a tavern. The rest of it was farmland belonging to private farmers growing crops like grain and tobacco. Riza asked the people within the main part of town if they could identify the man in the photos, or any of the rest. After coming up short, they visited the small military office consisting of a total of three officers: a lieutenant  and two privates. Lieutenant Blast, or as the Lieutenant-Colonel liked to nickname him “Lieutenant Last” on account of his deliberately slow cadence and gait, showed them the scorched farmland belonging to a family acres away. Riza heard the man assure them that the investigation was exhausted and the trail had thus gone cold. Skimming through Crawley’s evidence files proved as such.

Something kept the Lieutenant-Colonel silent while he looked through the photos on Blast’s desk; probably engrossed with the manner the fire was used.

“Have you heard anything from any of the other areas? From other offices?” Riza inquired, notepad and pen in hand.

“There was…,” Blast slowly sucked in breath, “...a disturbance one ...other town.”

“Spit it out, Blast.” She heard the subtle bite in his voice.

Lieutenant Blast nodded slowly. “Three hours from here… South. Past Giribaz…”

Riza gripped her pen tighter. “Yes, and the name of this place?”

What was probably seconds felt like hours as his beady little green eyes glazed over trying to remember. “Chasteaux.”

In her peripheral, Riza saw the Lieutenant-Colonel’s head snap up as her own body failed to respond for a moment.

“Did I hear that right?” He closed folder holding the pictures and documents. “Did you say Chasteaux?” She knew the answer to that just as well as he did and that made for a painful silence in the car.

The entire way, he had this look on his face like he wanted to ask a question. Not the question when they sat in silence for seconds in front of her apartment building. It was a questions he didn’t know how to word or how to even form the words, because it might hurt or reopen wounds that were never treated properly. A festering that would rather be put out of sight than ensure it didn’t turn gangregious. The weight in her chest was heavy and it sunk further as she saw the hilly outskirts of her old hometown come into view.

Dusk was beginning to chase away the day. Chasteaux always looked like a place time forgot. The buildings were ancient, as were the houses. She was sure that had it not been for the invention of synthetic fabrics the people would look exactly the same. In her time here, the only alchemist she ever knew was her father and, by extension, his apprentice Roy.

A new building had been erected in her year of absence, she noticed, and it stuck out like a sore thumb.The inn was colored in pastels and brightly shone with lights, dwarfing the other establishments around it with the multiple storeys. It would be better, she reasoned, if they stayed at an inn than if they stayed at her abandoned house - to track their movement should the military need it. Riza told the Lieutenant-Colonel as much.

He parked the car in front of it and turned to her, hesitating. She didn’t want to look at him. Riza didn’t know if she could take that same look of pity when it mirrored the last time they were here, so she leapt out of the car before he could say anything.

There was still enough daylight to ask a few people around, but she felt securing a room was equally important. Luckily, she didn’t recognize the innkeeper. Wearily, she approached the old woman with glasses looking over a ledger until she saw Riza approach. “Hello, how can I help you, dear?”

“Two rooms please.”

Riza was given a sympathetic look. “Apologies, miss, all our rooms all but one are occupied”

Incredulous, and after 5 hours of stuck in a vehicle, she said tiredly, “What? Who can possibly be taking all the rooms?”

“The Winter festival has become a bit of a big thing for this old, forgotten town. It’s brought new life to it.”

She’d never heard of any festival in Chasteaux save for the Harvest. Even then, that was sparse event drawing a paltry number of attendees from nearby towns. Mystified, she asked, “How?”

The old woman smiled. “The people were tired of being forgotten.”

Riza felt that sentiment hit too close to home. Whether it was because of being mentally spent or not, she didn’t know. Accepting, she said, “All right, I’ll take the one room.” She could stay in her own house. It’s just one night. She clenched a fist, imperceptible to the the older woman writing in her log; maybe she was putting it off long enough.

“One bed, okay?”

It made no difference to her. “Perfect.”

Riza was given the key with a key tag labelled “6-11”. She left the brightly-colored building to find the Lieutenant-Colonel and found the car alone instead. Her hands ran through her face, feeling the fatigue all at once.

“Riza?” Every muscle suddenly became taut from her name. “Riza Hawkeye, is that you?” She turned around to see Mrs. Tilde walking towards her; a baker back when Riza was a girl now wrinkled with streaks of gray hair and gripping a cane for support.

“Mrs. Tilde,” she said courteously. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“ _You’re_  the pleasant surprise. Why, look how you’ve grown and in the military too.” She grasped at Riza’s arm and tugged gently. “Come, let’s go see who’s around.”

“Oh, my apologies Mrs. Tilde, as much as I’d love to, but I’m actually on duty right now and--”

“I thought I saw Roy running around here, is he here with you too?”

The old woman glanced at Riza’s hands. “But I don’t see no ring.” She smiled deviously. “Let me guess, shotgun wedding like your mother and father?”

 _Please don’t bring them up._  Riza blinked several times before she got over the embarrassment, “No, he’s my superior officer.” She really needed to leave, but she knew, to them, she’d been gone for four years. The people assumed Roy had taken over the Hawkeye estate when he went into town for her first aid supplies to treat her burns. Riza tried to make a move to leave but she didn’t know how without using force and the old lady wouldn’t take a hint she had places to be.

“I see,” Mrs. Tilde’s face fell. “Well, I told this to Roy the last time he was here. We’re sorry about your father and that we all missed his funeral.”

Riza chewed on the inside of her cheek. Quietly, she said, “I didn’t know anyone would come to the funeral of a recluse.”

But it was too low for Mrs. Tilde, or she ignored it. “I’m also very sorry about your house. Beautiful architecture.” She shook her head in the way grandmothers do disapprovingly. “It burned everything before anyone could do anything about it.”

“What are you talking about?” There had been no question about what she had just heard, but her head went light.

“Aren’t you here to investigate the fires, dear? And to find the awful, awful hooligans who did it?”

“What fire?”

Mrs. Tilde’s eyes widened and the lamplight casted a shadow over them. “Did… “ She began to let go. “Did no one tell you? Write you?”

Out of breath, she shook her head slowly and said, “No. ...I’ve only just arrived, Mrs. Tilde.” Riza glanced around, breathing quickening - she wasn’t sure what she was looking for as the tears pooled in her eyes. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”

Lacking the keys to the car, she walked the route she knew back to her house on the dirt road she travelled on so many times. The fatigue pushed to the back of her mind. It always took half an hour on foot - past the tree with a split trunk, over the bridge separating her property and the town, beyond the browning open fields until she saw the rusted mailbox barely standing off the side of the road.

Morbidly, she thought it looked better burnt down than it did up. It didn’t, however, stop the suckerpunch she felt in her stomach, stealing her of breath. The dilapidated manor was reduced to charred rubble with only a few weight-bearing studs jutting from the foundation. Riza walked through the creaking metal gate. The sounds of life and night were far-off.

Walking into what was once a foyer, she thought it ironic that the house of Berthold Hawkeye, the master of fire alchemy, should be demolished by the element of his specialty. It was ironic that it was within those walls that she had his protege burn his secrets off her back.

It was ironic that she wasn’t the one to do it.

She wanted to -- _fiercely_. It’s why she left. It’s why she didn’t come back. She’d meant to keep her mother’s belongings at a time when she was ready and to organize the skeletons placed in her closet. To lock the proverbial door and throw away its key. She always said she’d return to burn the notes, the books, the clothes, the cold keepsakes, and the memories of cruel man who taught others alchemy and taught her pain and  _fear_.

Right then and there she wanted to blame him for everything that happened her. The resentment. The secrets. The poverty. Riza could see the events of her life rolling like snowball, gaining size down a mountain. Left with no choice, she enlisted because there was nothing left to her name, not even enough money to bury him, no family to turn to. She envied the kids who enjoyed going home because she had a  very different definition for hers. The burden of a responsibility she wasn’t worthy enough to even look at, bestowed her father’s secrets to the one person, she thought, had showed her kindness because she was naive and young. She still  _was!_  She indebted herself to  _his_ cause out of the guilt from his betrayed trust. All a result of something she didn’t ask for. All because ...perhaps, her father held no love for her. This was the truth she was trying to avoid and the subsequent loneliness of its wake.

She held herself, covering her mouth.  She wanted to curse Berthold Hawkeye who lied in his grave ignorant to his daughter’s misfortune. For everything,  _everything._

But what good would that do now? Anything that mattered has been blown or washed away in her absence. It wouldn’t bring back her mother. It wouldn’t save those Ishvalans. They would remain as pictures in her head, fading with time, as with these ashes surrounding her.

The whole situation felt like a sardonic joke. A punishment was better suited for it.  _She_  was the joke as she wasn’t as quick on the draw as she liked to believe; another addition to the list of things she took too long to act on.

There was a wetness to her cheeks and suddenly the realization consumed her that she hadn’t grown up from the scared girl from before. She was still scared.  She hadn’t grown; she only succeeded in masking her with the face of a murderer.

Stepping forward, she kicked something on the floorboard. It was hard to see with the sun now settled beyond the horizon. The moon was enough to point her in the right direction. In her hands, she held the face of a watch; the bands burned at both ends, but somehow the face had been spared by the fire. The glass was cracked and the mother of pearl underneath gave off a sheen. It released from her like a river’s rush during a downpour with a sob that wracked her body, holding her mother’s watch in her gloved hand. She turned quickly to get away until she slammed into something solid.

Unmoving, Riza knew better than to be surprised. She gripped the lapels of the stiff, woolen coat, but she still wanted to be angry. She needed that ire to fuel her - to change her, but it was useless. To her father’s dismay, she wasn’t someone who would be consumed by fire; she melded with it. Worked with it. Guided it. And there’s no one else who would care coming out this far, certainly no one from town. Only the military or apprentices from Central or Flame Alchemists. But she asked anyway, “How did you find me?”

“After I found out what happened here, I realized they hadn’t left Giribaz when nothing was touched there. I called Eastern Command to dispatch so we can arrest them in the morning.” The words resonated deeply in his chest. “I went to go look for you after that.”

She wanted to laugh. Laughter would have been nice, but she made no sounds. Riza stood there, forehead to his chest. Her arms were now dead beside her and he made no move of his own. She stepped back and the wind picked up the air of burnt wood. With no place to stay the night, she said, “It’s time to go back, sir.”

He made jokes about how they should invest in infrastructure out in the rural areas instead of human weapons on the bumpy ride back. She was silent all the way to the inn and that’s when she could hear the worry in his voice.

She sat on the side of the bed, back to him and the door. He said something, but she was lost in her own thoughts until a hand rested on the shoulder of her uniform that yanked her from drowning in them. She jumped and he sounded apologetic. “Sorry, I said I was going to get food. I wanted to know if you wanted anything.”

Without looking up, Riza grabbed the hand on her shoulder. “Stay,” She worried that if she threw in the word “please” she would break.

“Lieutenant...”

She tugged the arm toward her center and looked up, hoping the tears would stay at the corner of her eyes. “Riza is asking you to stay.”

Something in his face changed. She couldn’t read what it was.

Her inexperience with people thus far had limited her social cues, but she had Rebecca to thank for normalizing her to society again. She pulled him on the seat next her without staring at him in the face and the bed gave into the weight. “I need…” She released his hand and unclasped the button, then two, of his coat. Her eyes met with his, “...someone.”  _Comfort._

“I don’t understand,” he said unsure. She let the fall of his coat off his shoulder communicate for her and he received the message. Roy was still for a moment and she watched the gears turn behind his eyes. He shook his head. “Riza.”

“It doesn’t have to be complicated.” She didn’t know herself anymore. The things she wanted to ask for, it wasn’t her. Her emotions were wrapped in something foreign; it became unrecognizable. She wanted to make a choice of her own for once. “I don’t want to feel. No one has to know in some forgotten town in the East”

“It’ll become too complicated. We- I’m sorry. You’re my subordinate. And..”

Riza let go of him like he burned her. The embarrassment settled right next to her sunken heart. Smiling sadly, she turned forward and wiped a tear off her cheek before he could notice something so childish. It couldn’t have been worse, she realized, than suggesting something as insolent as making advances to a superior officer. “No, I should be the one apologizing. I’m coming to terms that nothing will be as before. I should know better. That time is gone.” She spoke to the fingers on her lap. “It won’t happen again.”

If he made any semblance of a response, Riza didn’t hear it. She saw him leave her side from her peripheral, and heard the boots cross the room until the door opened and closed. She shut her eyes with it so that the tears that were pooling at the bottom of her eyelids could finally be freed. She wrapped her arms around herself, clenching teeth and eyes, as a sadness hollowed out a void in her chest. Her breath stilled in her lungs if only to deny herself the agonized cries begging to be released. Everything felt so wrong and she had no clue how to make it right. She isolated herself to a profession she had no love for. She had nothing else, but she dragged that through the mud because she couldn’t keep silly, little emotions in check. If he didn’t transfer to another unit for insubordination, she would feel the urge to resign herself were it not for the alchemy she felt responsible for.

Riza jumped when the door opened. Her arms fell like dead weights. She didn’t turn from the cowardice of staring him in the face after her folly, but she took a deep breath. This time, his footsteps were hastened as he walked past the front of the bed, and stopped in front of her. None of her muscles moved, with or without her willingness, for the few seconds he didn’t say anything.

Her eyes travelled upwards by the nudge of two fingers under her chin. He swooped in to kiss her. Her arms supported her against the plush bed as he nudged her further on to it. Her legs were lifted and she was centered on the mattress followed by his weight over her. She took the entire gesture in stride without a moment of hesitance. Her coat fell off her in the middle of it, then his shirt, then their ranks.

“No one can know,” he murmured against her lips.

She nodded.  _To make up for lost time._


End file.
